tormenta
ES [torˈmenta] · Spanish for “storm” · looks like English torment
Listening to and translating on-the-go a song from the Mexican band Hocico (quite a dark type of music, not recommended for everyone), a wild la tormenta appeared. The narrative of the song (and honestly, even the band) perfectly fitted the presumed meaning - torture / anguish / torment. Looking at the translation, though, it should mean a storm. Yup, another false friend encountered, this time it’s a bit more interesting at least.
Tormenta is the everyday Spanish word for a storm. A single unit of Hamming distance from torment - anguish, torture - so a weather forecast reads like a threat. I mean, a strong storm can indeed be quite intimidating and grim, so I could imagine being outside during a storm can feel like torment. This is however, not the way this intriguing and coincidental similarity originated.
Not a coincidence - they're the same word. Both go back to Latin tormentum, an instrument for twisting: a torture device, and also a torsion-powered catapult. It's built on torquēre, “to twist” - the root behind torque, distort, contort, and torture. English kept the anguish sense (torment); Spanish let it drift to the sky, where a storm is the weather twisting itself into violence. The kicker: Spanish held onto both meanings and split them by gender - el tormento is torment, la tormenta is the storm.